


Come Softly to Bed & Other Clarkson Week Short Fic from the TGS Spring Challenge

by BourbonNeat



Category: Top Gear (UK) RPF
Genre: Episode-centric, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Teasing, fest: TGS Spring Challenge 2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-01
Updated: 2014-05-01
Packaged: 2018-01-21 11:52:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1549559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BourbonNeat/pseuds/BourbonNeat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five Jeremy Clarkson-centric drabbles, droubles and other short fic from Clarkson Week in the TGS Spring Challenge.</p><p>Ratings range from PG to R, pairings range from gen/friendship to J/J to OT3. Both are indicated in the chapter title.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Come Softly to Bed – Jeremy/James, R

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is fiction. It never happened and is not meant to imply anything about the people featured in the story. Complete unreality from a fanciful mind.

The rays of the setting sun shone through the spaces in the blinds, dappling the bed in rosy hues as shadows deepened throughout the room, waking up and stretching out in the fading light. 

Jeremy ran his hands slowly, almost lazily up the thighs of the naked man beneath him, griping hips that bucked eagerly and holding them still. He took a moment to enjoy the view, the way James shivered in pleasure at his touch, muscles quivering in anticipation as Jeremy smoothed his thumbs over the curves of his hipbones.   
  
Blue-grey eyes dark with lust, he leaned over and began to retrace his path, first with tongue, then teeth, earning gratifying gasps and moans with each nip. He smiled, chuckling warm and low as James’ hands tangled in his hair, tugging at the back where the curls still grew thick and unruly, urging his head up higher to an even more pleasing destination.  
  
There had been so many years where even a hug was off limits, years spent edging around one another, rubbing each other the wrong way, wrestling with and poking at the awkward feelings between them, wearing them down until they became sufficiently comfortable to embrace, that he’d never imagined this. Actually, he’d imagined it quite a lot. Yearned for it. Wanked over it. But he’d never really believed it possible, which made him treasure every touch, every sensation, every delicious sound just that much more.  
  
Jeremy might be allergic to manual labor, but challenge he embraced wholeheartedly.


	2. One Man’s Holiday… – Jeremy/James, PG-13

Not since Jeremy was a small boy contemplating a return to the drudgery of school, had late summer seemed so much like an ending. He crumpled up the newspaper he’d been reading and threw it in the general direction of the bin with a growl, thoroughly annoyed with the close-up photos of his family on holiday in the Caribbean for more than just the usual reasons. When James refrained from commenting as it ricocheted off the lip of the bin and bounced out onto the kitchen floor, Jeremy knew he must be as pathetic as he felt this morning.

With a sigh, he continued trying to explain. It wasn’t as if he actually wanted to be there again with them. _There_ didn’t really even exist anymore. The kids were all older now and spent much of their holiday making their own fun – together, with mates, with significant others, with pretty much anyone who wasn’t an embarrassing parental type – and even before that he and Francie weren’t getting on at all.

This was better. Really. In many ways he was happier than he’d been in years. It was just that – well, sometimes… Oh sod it all. He finally shut his mouth and stopped talking. He wasn’t even sure he _could_ explain his mood.

James studied his moping lover for a long time before speaking. “Well, I’d offer to take you to the Caribbean, but I suspect that won’t really solve the problem. What about – did you ever think about holidays you might take after the children were grown? Things you wanted to do just for yourself?”

Jeremy was about to brush this off as a pointless exercise, but then he stopped and really thought about it. “Yes, actually,” he said, brightening considerably. “I’ve had a whole list for ages. WWII sites and engineering museums and…you’d really do that?”

James nodded and smiled as Jeremy began rattling off specifics with increasing excitement.

“This is perfect James. You know,” he laughed. “I probably never really would have taken this trip, not even after the kids were grown. It’s not Francie’s sort of thing either and even if she’d indulged me, she wouldn’t really enjoy it. Not like you will.”

“There you go Jezza. Eventually there had to be some perks to shagging the slowest, most boring man in the world.” 

That comment made Jeremy pause. He hadn’t realized how hurtful his whining about missing the past might have sounded, especially when this thing, his relationship with James, was still so fragile and new. But when he looked up he saw only affection and mockery, in roughly equal proportion, in the brilliant blue eyes sparkling back at him across the table. Perfect, indeed. But still…

“You do know that I don’t really…”

“I do.”

“And that I absolutely…”

“Oh, yes. I do. Now, why don’t you come upstairs with me, Jezza? I’ve thought of a few more perks I wish to point out.”

Suddenly late summer seemed like something much closer to a beginning.


	3. Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps – Pre Jeremy/James, PG

Barely able to sit still in the bar at the top of the NatWest tower, Jeremy was still flushed with excitement and high on adrenalin even though the race had, for him at least, ended two hours ago.

His ecstatic words extolled the many virtues and wonders of the Bugatti Veyron, but his attention kept drifting back to the spaniel struggling not to fall asleep in the chair across from him. The sight of his clearly exhausted colleague filled Jeremy with the usual desire to take the piss, playing up a relationship the press gleefully described as toxic for the cameras, but also with something else. What was this? Affection, protectiveness and something... something a lot more. Interesting.

As those sleepy blue eyes lost their battle to stay open for the last time and the greying head nodded forward, Jeremy looked at James and for the first time thought, _maybe..._


	4. They Say it’s Your Birthday – Jeremy/James/Richard, PG

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I bent TG’s actual filming schedule to my evil will for this one. It actually appears that IRL Jeremy’s schedule typically lets him be on his birthday, to which I say good for him.

He’s celebrated his birthday on the Concord, the flight deck of a Royal Navy aircraft carrier, and in the driver’s seat of more rare supercars than he can remember. Blown out stealthily lit candles on surprise cakes in the hanger at Dunsfold, the set of QI, and backstage at Top Gear Live in South Africa. Toasted growing another year older lakeside in Italy, at a bar in Iceland and, on one especially memorable occasion, 90 miles south of the magnetic North Pole in a Toyota Hilux.

Truly Jeremy Clarkson is a lucky man. But he never feels luckier or more content on his birthday than when he’s celebrating like this, laughing uproariously in the living room in Hammersmith with James and Richard, with copious amounts of beer and takeaway for dinner. The scant possibility of a birthday cake of any sort – well, of any sort that one might dare to eat – is more than offset by the company and the guarantee of eventually continuing the celebration upstairs.

It may sound suspiciously like much the same thing they do every time they have an evening together, but birthdays should be all about indulging in favorite pastimes with the ones you love.


	5. The Three Co-Presenters Gruff – Gen TG3 Silliness, PG

Jeremy waved the last Mars bar above Richard’s head as they spilled into the Portakabin, fresh from the track. James glanced up from his crossword puzzle just long enough to determine that, yes, Jeremy was in the middle of yet another heightist rant, before returning to ponder his options for 14 across.

“…some sort of Brummie Elf, Hammond. Honestly, we’re like a fairy tale around here, we are…”

Richard made another leaping grab for the candy, but Jeremy barely had to move his arm and didn’t miss a single beat as he hit his full taunting stride. 

“…like _Goldilocks and the Three Bears_ or _The Three Billy Goats Gruff_ ,” he gestured about the room indicating the three of them. “Each one larger and significantly less stupid than the last.”

“I was going to go with each one smaller and much better looking that the last,” Richard grumped. “Though the difference there is a bit steep, mate.”

“So’s the height difference, Teeth.”

Richard, having now succeeded in walking Jeremy to the other side of the small room, ignored the jibe, bounced up and off the sofa in one smooth leap and captured the candy with a mad giggle, knocking the crossword from James’ hands and causing the man to slosh his tea in the process.  

Ignoring the noises of protest and complaint from both of the taller men, Richard flopped down on the sofa to enjoy his prize. “A fairy tale, eh? Like _Richard Hammond and the Two Ugly Step-Presenters_.”

James glared at Richard as he pointedly shook tea from one hand and bent over to retrieve his mangled newspaper. “More like, _James May and the how do I always get caught in the middle of your shenanigans?”_

Jeremy, if possible even grumpier about the turn of events than James, growled, “No, clearly it would be _Jeremy Clarkson and the Two Giant_ –”

“Steady!” Richard cut him off, cackling madly.

“Yes,” James managed to wheeze in between bursts of uncontrollable, breathless laughter. “I think _that_ story would be in an entirely different section, Jez.”

Jeremy tried to maintain his injured scowl, but he just couldn’t, not with the other two literally clutching their sides and rolling with laughter on the sofa.

“Besides,” James added once everyone could breathe again. “We can’t be like a fairy tale. Fairy tales were intended to teach children right from wrong. They always contain some moral or a cautionary tale. We can’t even handle consumer advice without being rubbish.”

 

*** * * * ***

However, in this particular instance James was not as knowledgeable as he thought…

That night, as dusk descended and deepened into night, mother caravans throughout the land tucked their young into bed with the same fairy tale:

 _Once upon a time, there were three motoring journalists…_  

_…And if you don’t go to sleep my little ones, and behave yourselves like good little caravans, the Top Gear boys will get you._

 


End file.
